Snowed Under in Burlington

I’ve been at Dean Headquarters this week. This is the second time I’ve come up here intending to blog several color stories on what it’s like. Again, I’ve been so busy doing real work that the blogging suffers. And we had the first snow flurries of the year this morning.

Ed Cone was here on Tuesday and Wednesday.

West Wind for the West Wing

The news is out. Zephyr Teachout and Ryan Davis are taking an eight week trip across the country in a 27 foot reconditioned Airstream. Since zephyr derives from Greek for west wind, the Airstream seems a suitable conveyance.

Ryan’s Express

Not to be out-publicized, Ryan just told me that Ryan is Gaelic for Little Prince. Here he is early this morning contacting California Deaniacs to set up visits–one of his contacts called him back at 2:45 am.

Theirs is no odyssey for the faint-hearted. 64 cities in 8 weeks. 64 meetups. 64 chances to nourish the grass roots:

The first week’s itinerary includes:

• October 27: Los Angeles Kickoff
• October 28: Santa Barbara
• October 29: Salinas, San Jose, and Oakland
• October 30: Sacramento
• October 31: Davis and San Francisco

Later tour stops will include Reno, Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Roswell, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Crawford, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Jackson (Miss.), Atlanta, Orlando, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and dozens of other cities and towns. The tour will conclude in Philadelphia, the nation’s cradle of liberty, in mid-December.

Of the, By the, and For the…

The message to the grass roots? The campaign has been so successful that it has driven Joe Trippi’s doctrine of letting go to its logical outcome. The grass roots is now in charge of energizing itself. Literally, the “official” campaign cannot even pretend to directly manage the great conversation that is the campaign. So the next step is to empower the most active Dean supporters (“Deaniacs”) to engage and support the next most active Deaners, and so on.

Just as the best schools are those whose parents cultivate each other’s interests, exhorting them to greater involvement and support, so too will the Dean campaign now be in the hands of the people whom the campaign was organized to cultivate.
3:55:21 PM